This was not the only hoax by which James Nisbet was a sufferer. Later on, a practical joke was played upon him by some wag, who sent the following to a large number of country papers:—
“Nearly Ready, in Three Handsome Octavo Volumes,
“LITERARY PYROTECHNICS; or, Squibs, Pasquins, Lampoons, and other Sparkling Pleasantries, by the best English Writers, from the Reign of Elizabeth to the Present Day, with Philological Notes by the Hon. the Vice-Chancellor Sir William Page Wood, Knt.
“James Nisbet and Co., Berners-street, London.”
This very advertisement was directed to be inserted in the next issue, and a copy of the paper containing the advertisement was to be sent to the publisher with the price of inserting it four or six times. About one hundred papers fell into the snare, to James Nisbet’s horror and amazement.
Nisbet was a very charitable man to all of his way of thinking. The “Saints” were freely welcomed to his hospitable house, which was used as a free hotel by travelling missionaries and preachers, who often said a grateful “grace for all the rich mercies of his table.” He was one of the chief supporters of the Fitzroy Schools, and one of the most zealous founders of the Sunday School Union. Nor was he wanting in generosity to general and more publicly useful charities; and, during a period of thirty years, his books show that he collected for more than five hundred institutions, and that the total amount that passed through his hands was £114,339 16s. 4d.
It is pleasant, amid the farrago of religious cant and trash with which the “Lessons from his Life” are surrounded, to find some glimmering of the real man—the enterprising and successful bookseller. “From his energy of character, and from habit, he was more accustomed to lead others than to be led himself; therefore, any attempt to alter or set aside arrangements which he had himself devised ... was almost sure to meet with, on his part, a strenuous and determined resistance.”
In 1854, when the cholera was raging in London, his brave conduct was far above any party praise. The position of chairman of the Middlesex Hospital devolved temporarily upon him, and fearlessly he set about his difficult duty. Day after day he was at his post, directing all things, and alleviating, with every means in his power, the physical sufferings of the patients; and still, while adopting all that was proper to check the progress of the disease, not unmindful of administering the consolations of religion.
He died on the 8th November, 1854, having been seized with a violent illness on his return from a before-breakfast visit to the Orphan Working School at Haverstock Hill.
In a funeral sermon, preached by Dr. Hamilton at Regent’s Square church, his character is thus summed up, both sides of it being cautiously exhibited:—“With a sanguine temperament, he had strong convictions and an eager spirit; and, whilst he sometimes magnified into an affair of principle a matter of secondary importance, he was impatient of opposition, and did not always concede to an opponent the sincerity he so justly claimed for himself. Then, again, his openness was almost excessive, and his determination to flatter nobody sometimes led him to say things more plain than pleasant.... Those only could appreciate his excellence who either knew his entire mode of life, or whose casual acquaintance was confined to the walks of his habitual benevolence.”
As a publisher, he was eminently successful, and reaped a due reward for his honest industry; never had he a bad debt but once, and, on recovering that unexpectedly, he presented the amount of it, in a silver service, to a church. The books he issued were chiefly of an ephemeral religious class, and literature is certainly less indebted to his success than were the charitable institutions of the day.
Mr. James Murray, who had been Nisbet’s partner in business for many years, succeeded to the command of the firm; and, after his death at Richmond in June, 1862, Mr. Watson, the present manager, was appointed by the family to superintend the whole concern.